By Natalie Giocondo
“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” -Benjamin Franklin.
As the last few leaves of autumn fall, and we barrel headlong into the busyness of the holidays, let’s take a moment to welcome the shortening of days and changing seasons. Flowing from a time of harvest to a time of suspension Winter presents us with the opportunity to pause. Just as the animals hibernate and the plants go dormant, we too are invited by the late sunrises and early sunsets to tuck in for some deep relaxation and sleep.
Getting a good night’s rest promotes physical health and overall well-being; unfortunately, it can be a challenge and maybe particularly challenging for MPN patients. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), sleep affects every system in the body, and lack of sleep correlates with several issues of interest to the MPN community, including high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. The NIH also suggests that insomnia is an unmet need in communities with chronic hematological cancers. In 2017, a study conducted by Dr. Krisstina Gowin echoed that unmet need when 52.1 % of her MPN participants reported trouble staying asleep, and another 33.7% said they had difficulty falling asleep, while 31.2% mentioned having insomnia.
Here are some tried and true healthy sleep habits:
- Stay on a sleep schedule. Go to bed and rise at the same time each day. I, for one, begin heading to bed earlier once the cold sets in and the roosters are crowing a little later in the morning.
- Create an environment for sleep. Dark, quiet, cool, and without electronics works best.
- Get enough exercise during the day. If you don’t already have an exercise routine, I highly recommend Justin Grinnell’s Moderate-Impact webinar to get you started.
- Avoid stimulation. This could be anything from caffeine to nicotine to watching the news or engaging in heated conversations too close to bedtime.
- Eat early. This point cannot be understated! Some patients with MPNs report digestive issues that interfere with sleep. Giving your body plenty of time to process before heading to bed may be worth a try.
Yoga Nidra
A less well-known practice to encourage deep rest and cultivate sleep is yoga nidra. The words yoga nidra mean yoga (to yoke) and nidra (to sleep). It brings up images of a little yogi cowboy lassoing sleep, or a sleep herder. This practice was brought to the US in the 1960s by Swami Satchidadnanda and popularized by practitioners like Nischala Joy Devi (Deep Relaxation), and Dr. Richard Miller (iRest Yoga Nidra).
The practice requires the practitioner to lie in a comfortable resting position while a guide verbally takes them on a gentle journey through 6 phases of meditation: preparation, intention, rotation of consciousness, breath awareness, sensation awareness, visualization, and dropped mind awareness.
While not studied in the MPN population, studies on yoga nidra have suggested benefits such as reduced perceptions of pain, positive effects on blood pressure, pulse, and respiration rates, reduction in erythrocyte sedimentation (which detects the level of inflammation in the body), and has cured chronic insomnia in some people.
If you are curious about yoga nidra and would like a little taste, please join me on Thursday, November 16th at noon ET, when we will host a 30-minute guided yoga nidra practice.